Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4498 mails)

[Basil Chupin <blchupin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Istvan Gabor wrote:
> Hello all:
>
> I have suse 10.1.
> The system has a cd-rw and a dvd-rw drive.
> After booting the system Yast dma status check reports that 
> for both drive the dma is on.  After a certain time checking 
> again Yast reports that dma is off for both drives.
> If I want to turn dma in Yast it gives an error message:
>
> "An error occured while activating the changes. Cannot set 
> required mode '%1' for device %2."
>
>
> At the same time according to hdparm dma is on:
>
> # hdparm -i /dev/hdc
>
> /dev/hdc:

[pruned]

I had the identical problem when I installed 10.1. After asking in the 
forum for help and then doing some testing the ONLY way I could get the 
DMA "stick" on rebooting/booting was to set the DMA for *all* drives and 
not just for the CDROM and the DVDRW. Setting it only for these 2 and 
ignoring the HDs did not set the DMA for the CDROM; setting it for all 
did the trick.

My set up is:

hda  = HD (udma5)

hdb  = CDROM (udma2)

hdc  = HD (udma5)

hdd  = DVDRW (udma4)

so in file /etc/sysconfig/ide I inserted the line:

DEVICES_FORCE_IDE_DMA="/dev/hda:udma5 /dev/hdb:udma2 /dev/hdc:udma5 
/dev/hdd:udma4"

You will need to find what the udma is for your HD(s) [using the hdparm 
command, above] and adjust the above line accordingly.

As I said, doing it this way is the only way I could get the setting of 
the DMA to "stick".

You will find a discussion on this in the archives of this forum dated 
around 7 - 14 November 2005.

(BTW, another alternative which was suggested was to put in 
/etc/init.d/boot.local a line "hdparm -d1c1u1 /dev/hdx" for each device 
not having its DMA set correctly but this did NOT work for me.)


Cheers.


--
"I hope you leave here and walk out and say,
'What did he say?'"

        George W. Bush    27 August 2004